Year 1/2 - Seahorses class

Seahorse Class September 2020

Welcome to the Seahorse Class page! This year Seahorse Class will be taught by Mrs Boucher and Mrs Belcher. 

Mrs Rose and Mrs Frances will be supporting the learning in our class.

Please feel free to email us at lboucher@standrews.dsat.org.uk and abelcher@standrews.dsat.org.uk if you have any questions or queries and we will try to reply as soon as possible.

Week beginning 7th September 2020

What a great first week back! On Tuesday, Seahorse class had a special parcel arrive... it was a book called 'Here We Are'. The children enjoyed starting to read it and wondered who had sent it to them. At the end of the week they had some great art sessions making papier mache planets.

The children have really liked seeing each other again and getting to know their new classmates too.

We hope you have a super weekend. Have fun!

Mrs Boucher and Mrs Belcher

Welcome back to home learning Summer 2.

HOME LEARNER WOW!

Louie - WOW!  For a consistent positive attitude to home learning.

SCHOOL LEARNER WOW!

Chaice- WOW!  For excellent effort in reading!  

Jacob K- WOW!  For continually trying hard!  

Georgia - WOW! For persevering and putting great effort into reading! 

Please scroll down for weekly class updates!

In our Seahorse Class team we have:

Mrs Rose who teaches us on alternate Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Mrs Mitchell who teaches us on alternate Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays.

Mrs Coventry who supports teaching and learning in our classroom every day.

If you have any concerns please speak to us. We are often available after school, contact the office for an appointment or if easier please email us (please email us both).

lrose@standrews.dsat.org.uk

jmitchell@standrews.dsat.org.uk

Seahorse WOW of the week is

Leah

Well done!

In Friday Worship one child is selected from each class as our WOW child. During the week this child has demonstrated something that has WOWED their teachers!

Spring Two - 'Dinosaur Planet'

Our term starts when we discover our classrooms have had an unusual visitor in over the half term holiday.  Stomp, crash, roar! Watch out – there are dinosaurs about!

This half term we will spend time exploring non-chronological reports, writing fact cards about dinosaurs and creating newspaper reports about the the classroom visitors.  We will share dinosaur poetry and use these to inspire us to write our own.  In maths we will be learning about shape and space and fractions. We will explore geographical features of our local area and further afield to include the worlds continents and oceans.  History is a natural part of this topic and will include finding out about influential people such as local person Mary Anning.  Our topic will be complete with a visit to Dorchester Dinosaur Museum where we will be able to add to our knowledge! 

Week beginning 16th March 2020

"Read all about it!" We have been looking at features of a newspaper and planning how to write our own about our dinosaur visitor.  We have considered the newspaper title, date, byline, headline, lead sentence, text/information and a caption to go with a picture.  What headline would you come up with?

In maths we have continue our work on fractions and have explored thirds of shapes and quantities. Try using objects at home to practice: count out 12 'objects' (e.g. pasta shapes, marbles, pencils), who in the family can find half first? One quarter? How many do you have if you have three quarters?  (prompt: do you need sharing circles?)

Have you ever looked carefully at the structure of leaves? We have! In science we have found different types of leaves and compared their shapes, colours, textures, edges, size etc.  Have go as a family but remember health and safety!

KS1 children have to be able to name the continents of the world and we have been listening to this very catchy song to help us remember it!  This song uses the name of 'Australia or Oceania' for the continent we refer to as 'Australasia', we discussed how there have been several names. 

 Remember Youtube is unfiltered and need supervision.

Spellings are a key area that we ask parents to support their child with at home and we send home weekly spellings to learn as well as provide the 'common exception word list' that shows all the words that KS1 children have to be able to spell.  To support you in this tricky task we have created a list of fun ways to learn the spellings in different ways. Please click on the document link below and have a look: we would love to hear feedback on whether these ideas have been useful.

Thank you if you came to parents evening, our next one is on Monday and we still have appointments available if you haven't yet made one.

We enjoyed sport relief, thank you for contributions! We spent some time selecting some equipment and making up a game with a partner. We had such a range of ideas including balancing,  bouncing, point scoring, rolling, throwing, hitting, spinning to name just a few! What game can you make up as a family with just a ball and hoop?

Week beginning 2nd March 2020

Another busy week in Seahorse Class!  In maths we have continued our work on fractions and 1/2 and 1/4 of shapes and quantities.  We have enjoyed writing reports about dinosaurs in Literacy and considering features on non-fiction writing such as sub-headings and captions.  In science we labelled plants and thought about what they needed to survive.  In RE we started our new unit with the big question 'Why does Easter matter to Christians?'  Ask us what we had in the mystery bag (to give you a prompt: bottle, nails, leaves...)  We continued map work in Geography and created our own keys to label our map of school.  The highlight was World Book Day and we thank you for the brilliant costumes and characters we had!  Enjoy the photographs below!

Week beginning 24th February 2020

WOW! If you keep an eye on the school's social media accounts you will have seen what greeted KS1 on our return - our classrooms had been visited....  Using our great detective skills we finally found out that a diplodocus had been into school leaving a trail of knocked over furniture, foliage and a nest with hatched eggs!  We have used this exciting event to kick start our Dinosaur topic and have been exploring dinosaur fact cards and research information about dinosaurs! 

We used Google Earth to look at an areal photograph of our school and discuss natural and man made features.  Follow the picture link and try it out - it is fascinating and the children loved it!  Our school postcode is DT3 6AA - then try your own!  We used this map to consider where the dinosaur may have gone after leaving our school, ask your child what they think happened next.

 In maths we have been finishing our unit on measures and had a go at seeing how far we could run in 5 seconds, how long our classroom is and comparing measurements using.

Homework 28/02/2020

Enjoy the photo gallery below.

Spring One - 'Superheroes'

Our first day back to school on Tuesday 7th January 2020 will be a VISION day!  During this day we will explore our school vision and discover what 'making a difference... with each other' means to us and how we might demonstrate this.

We would like to start the topic in an exciting way and are therefore asking children to come in dressed as a superhero on Wednesday 8th January. Home made costumes will be fine!  

Let’s put on our capes and discover our superpowers as we search for an answer to the question, ‘What is a superhero?’ This half term, we’ll work with the narrative 'Superworm', non-fiction 'How to be a superhero' and explore persuasive writing.  We will learn about real-life heroes from history including Florence Nightingale. As part of this project, we’ll explore our senses of smell, touch, taste, hearing and sight and investigate different foods. We’ll also test our superpowers by climbing, running, jumping and moving to music.

Please click on the links below to download the topic booklist, home learning ideas and knowledge organiser.

Week beginning 10th February 2020

Another busy week in Seahorse Class - do we ever have a quiet one?  It has been engaged with our scheduled assessment and as always your children persevere and try their best.  We hope that you have now heard of our OFSTED news and are as pleased as we all are! 

It was great to see so many people at our Showcase today and your children showed you the work that they were most proud of and the work they had to persevere at the most.  

Parents' Evening slots are available to book on Arbor now, Mrs Rose and Mrs Mitchell are available for appointments on Tuesday 10th March and Monday 16th March.

Over the holidays please spend time having fun, reading (lots), practicing spellings (common exception words are available at the bottom of Seahorse page) and counting in 2s/5s/10s and times tables.  Don't forget our terrific online learning subscriptions to Reading Eggs, Mathletics and TTRockstars -  email us if you have lost usernames/passwords.

There are lots of youtube sites that help learn counting patterns and times tables with song

(with times tables ensure it is 'UK' as some countries say them slightly differently which can cause confusion).  

       Ensure children use Youtube with adult supervision

Week beginning 3rd February 2020

Seahorse class have outdone themselves this week - they have been role models of the St Andrew's Way in every aspect!  In maths we have been measuring using rulers, meter rules and tape measures!  Have a go at home, measure different objects and see how they compare. What is the longest? What is the shortest? What is taller than...?

We have continued our learning about inspiring, significant individuals from the past and began to compare Mary Seacole, Edith Cavell and Florence Nightingale. In RE, we continued to learn about Judaism and we discussed what is important to Jewish people.  On Wednesday we had a visit from a theatre group who perform 'Spring into Life - an Easter play' for us. This is kindly funded by Weymouth and Portland churches so many thanks to them for this opportunity.  In Science we found out about food groups and what constitutes a balanced diet. 

Do you enjoy food from one group more than another?

Which food groups are included in your lunch?

Sid Seahorse continues to be sent home and thank you for your ongoing support in completing book reviews and sending in a favourite book for us to share!  It is really enabling us to consider other books and authors when we see what our friends enjoy.

On Friday we had the NSPCC Maths day. Thank you for the effort made with outfits containing numbers, shape or pattern; there were some terrific ideas!  We did lots of mathematical activities including a quiz called 'who wants to be a mathionaire', a maths hunt through the corridors of school and spent time measuring ourselves! (See the photograph gallery below).

We particularly enjoyed sharing some mathematical stories!

Ask us what happened with the Penguins and how the family tried to arrange the penguins!

It turns out one million jelly beans is an awful lot and as one child said 'that's not part of a balanced diet'! 

We all had to get closer to really see the jelly beans in the poster!  WOW!

Homework is an NSPCC 'maths at home' sheet - check bags!

Week beginning 27th January 2020

A terrific week in Seahorse Class again!  In maths we considered place value and compared numbers using the symbols for 'greater than', 'less than' and 'equal to'.  We moved onto addition and subtraction and year two solved these using the column method.  As part of our history topic we found a real-life hero and give a big thank you to Tom. One of Tom's jobs is as a first-responder and he kindly came into each KS1 class and told us about his job as well as showing us some equipment that he uses!  We will be using this to knowledge to compare aspects of the medical profession to that of Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole and Edith Cavell.  In science we learned about the importance of good hygiene and keeping healthy.  In English we wrote captions for comic pictures and then used an image to explore vocabulary used to describe a setting. 

Homework                                                                                                                               Letter in bags

Week beginning 20th January 2020

Another busy week in Seahorse Class!  In Science we posed the questions 'What is an animal?', 'Are we animals? Prove your answer.' and 'What do animals need to survive?'  We had lots of speaking and listening opportunities as we had to listen to others and articulate and justify our answers, arguments and opinions.  We also found about carnivores, herbivores and omnivores; ask your child what this vocabulary means!  In maths our focus has been partitioning and we have used different equipment such as part, part, whole frames to explore how different numbers can be represented. Ask your child how they might represent 35, can they do this in another way?

Click on the picture to share our brilliant text that we are using within our English (remember to supervise youtube links). We spent time discussing what we like/dislike and what we think about the characters.  We created story maps and explored asking Captain Mighty questions. What would you ask?  We will continue to use this text next week.

In RE we are learning about Judaism and we are exploring the big questions 'How important is it that Jewish people do what God asks them to do?' As part of this we have looked at Jewish artefacts and begun learning about a key Jewish figure of Moses using this clip as a prompt.    What was Moses asked to do?

In History we have found out about another influential nurse, Mary Seacole, we began to describe and explain the importance of her in history.  

Look out in the coming week for a VIPERS bookmark!  The bookmark has question prompts that will enable you to support your child in developing their comprehension skills in each area.  Please remember to write the reads in the diary and send this to school so that we can celebrate your child's effort.  Fluency in reading is crucial so re-read books and explore 'VIPERS' each time!

Homework and letters - check the bag!

Week beginning 13th January 2020

The children have had a terrific week at school!  In maths we have been learning about division and in English we completed our story maps and retelling of Superworm. Thank you if you were able to read (share the video link) with your child, familiarity with a text is essential and helps children build their vocabulary.

In science we are learning about our bodies and our senses. Questions we asked were: 'What is the most important part of our body? Why?' and 'What is the least important part of our body? Why?'  The 'why' is an important part as it encourages children to speculate, justify and articulate their reasons.  What do you and your family think?

In history we have begun to learn about famous historical children, ask your child which famous nurse we have been learning about (Florence Nightingale!) and how this person was instrumental for changing things.

Homework

Week beginning 7th January 2020

Happy 2020 to all our families, we hope you had a fun and restful break!  What a brilliant start back to Spring term!

On Tuesday we welcomed Miss Stewart to Seahorse class, Miss Stewart is continuing her teacher training with us until Easter and we are very excited to have her join us! 

Tuesday saw the whole school take part in a vision day.

In KS1 we focused on #makeadifference - with each other (Proverbs 3: 27-28).  We explored what this meant, how we experienced this and how we might show it to others.  As a family look up Proverbs 3: 27-28 and chat about what this means to you, how you both experience and make a difference with each other. 

We LOVED our impact day on Wednesday and thank you for all the dressing up, we didn't recognise our children!  We made saltdough superheroes, Top Trump cards and designed our own emblems. A great start to this topic!

We have begun to explore the text 'Superworm' a terrific Julia Donaldson story and considered how we might describe Superworm and the setting using verbs and adjectives such as 'Superworm has a long, pink body and googly eyes.  Angrily, Superworm slithers away'. Share the story using the Youtube link (click on the picture) and see what sentences you would write.  We will be continuing to use this text in Literacy next week.

Please remember supervision is required with Youtube links.

In Maths we have been focusing on counting in steps of 2, 5 and 10 (year ones) and multiplications of 2, 5 and 10s (year twos).  Counting in steps is a fundamental skill for all children so please help support your child by practicing regularly by reciting as you walk / go out in the car or counting objects (pebbles/pasta etc). 

There are also lots of youtube sites and games that can be used on computers/smart TVs/tablets etc to support  you helping your child, below are just some of them.

To support your child learning their multiplications please use TTRockstars (if you need help please ask), recite them in the car/whilst walking and use internet games/youtube (with supervision).

Homework           

Autumn Two - 'Bright Lights, Big City'

We’re starting our ‘Bright Lights, Big City’ topic with a tea party for the Queen and an online visit to Buckingham Palace. We’ll develop geographical skills by using maps, compass directions, planning routes and learning about countries and capital cities of the UK.  We will use Paddington Bear to inspire science, writing and develop our knowledge of London.  We will research ‘The Great Fire of London’ and explore changes that have happened.  We are very excited about our trip to Safewise where we will learn skills to keep ourselves safe when we are out and about. 

If you have visited London and would like to share photographs of yourself with key London landmarks then please email them to us!

Book list 

If you have any of these books, and we can borrow it, please let us know!

Home learning ideas

 If you are able to do any of these ideas please share them with us!

Week beginning 16th December 2019

What a week - we hope if you were able to attend one of our Christmas Worship's that you enjoyed it.  We were very proud of the children and how well they sang the songs and remembered stage directions and said lines - they are only 5-7 years old!

We've had great fun doing Christmas activities, circle times with Cinders in her ball and getting out to play between the rain showers!  We hope you are able to attend our Showcase tomorrow - you will be putting the finishing touches to a Christmas decoration that your child has made ready to take home!

Your child has come home with a username and password for a terrific online resource called TT-Rockstars (times tables). This is a great online tool that supports the learning of multiplication and division facts.  This has been initially set to two times tables/division only whilst they get used to how it works. Have a go, it is incredibly motivating and as they get quicker they can compete against others.  There will be a link to this at the bottom of Seahorse page with Reading Eggs and Mathletics!

We hope that you have an fun, restful and happy Christmas and new year and look forward to seeing you in 2020!

Week beginning 9th December 2019

The time seems to be flying away from us at the moment!  We have been busy with assessment week last week and this week we are really focusing on our Christmas Worship!  Thank you if you have sent in your child's clothes (dark clothing).  To allow the families of three classes to attend we will be performing once on Monday afternoon and again on Tuesday morning, full details are on our social media sites, newsletter and school web page!  We have been working hard to learn the songs and some children have lines to learn. Please continue to practice these - accuracy, expression and VOLUME!

We have completed our Project Touchline Ruby and the children will be coming home with a certificate. We are so proud of the children and how they demonstrated our school values consistently and with true understanding.

Each value has an associated action.  Ask us to show you the action and tell you when we used it!

I am Brave

As part of Project Touchline Worship we have been learning a song called 'I am Brave', listen and sing along below.

(Adult supervision needed when visiting youtube)

Please continue to share stories together, practice reading and spellings daily!

When we return after the Christmas break our new topic will be 'Superheroes'.  We would like to start the topic in an exciting way and are therefore asking children to come in dressed as a superhero on Wednesday 8th January. Home made costumes will be fine!  

Week beginning 25th November 2019

Another great week in Seahorse Class with our school values being demonstrated through our words and actions!  In English we have spent time planning and writing our story of Paddington and we changed where he visited. Ask us which London landmark he went to!  In maths our focus has been subtraction and using different strategies to solve these. We loved our science experiments about waterproofing and we tested different materials to see which would be suitable for Paddington's coat.  We continue to love our rugby and tennis sessions - please send in kits!

In RE we looked at different nativity scenes and explored a painting by Botticelli, what can you see? Can you identify any characters from the Christmas story?

Week beginning 18th November 2019

Your children have been busy impressing us with their positive attitudes and perseverance with learning.

In English we shared Paddington at the Palace. We have spent time using adjectives to describe Paddington, Buckingham Palace and the London Eye. These adjectives were then used in our expanded noun phrases.  Next week we will explore the story further before planning our own version with a change to it!  Share the story as a family and see if you can identify the beginning, middle and end. (Please remember youtube links need adult supervision)

In Maths we have continued to learn about addition and explored money and addition using money.  With our increasing use of 'contactless' payment, children have less experience of coins. If possible gather change from 1p-50p/£1/£2 (depending on your child) and create a shop with items from around the home and post-it notes. Take turns to choose and pay for items. Begin with buying one item.  How can you pay for it exactly? What coins can you use? Is there one coin you can pay exactly with? What is the least number of coins you can use? Is there another way?  Then consider buying two items, how much are they together? 

We all enjoyed learning more about the Great Fire of London and using Samuel Pepys diary; ask us what we know!

Don't forget to use our Knowledge Organiser that we sent out at  the beginning of this term; what learning might it inspire you to do as a family? Please ask for another copy if you cant find it.

Letter about our Christmas Show!

Week beginning 11th November 2019

Another busy week with children earning lots of starfish for showing the 'St Andrew's Way' and making a difference! Ask your child what they did to earn a starfish!

In literacy we completed our recounts of our trip to Safewise and in maths we continued our learning about addition with an emphasis on different strategies that we could use. In our topic work we spent time looking at maps and exploring London landmarks - if you have a photograph of a London landmark you have visited please email it to us to include on our display!  Particular highlights of our week were Project Touchline and the pantomime theatre group! Ask your child about Dick Wittington!

Please remember to send in outdoor PE kit and trainers on Thursday; a spare bag could be useful for muddy shoes! 

Week beginning 4th November 2019

A great start to a new half term! We loved our impact morning on Monday where we held a ‘Royal Tea Party’, made crowns and ate some jelly.  Visiting Streetwise was amazing and thank you to all the volunteers – we could not go without you! Ask your child: ‘What hazards did you find in the rooms?’ ‘What do you do if there is smoke in your home?’, ‘What safety things do we need to remember about cars/scooters?’ or 'how much sugar was in a carton of frosted flakes'.  

In maths we are using our place value knowledge to support our learning about addition and subtraction as well as using the symbols <,> and =.  We’ve discussed the seasonal changes that are occurring and why this happens and are learning about the countries within the UK.  Our literacy is focusing on recounts and using time conjunctions to help order our writing.  

We started our six week block of 'Project Touchline' ruby sessions with Mr Andrews this week; we will be exploring how our school values are essential in sport and all areas of life.  Please ensure your child has PE kit, jogging bottoms and trainers (if possible) in school on a Thursday.

A school fundraiser each year is ‘My school Art’: an envelope is coming home for you to order your Christmas cards (and other things)!  You can also follow this link to view your child’s design and place an online order!  https://www.myschoolart.co.uk/

An interactive site we used to help explore the UK!

Homework 

Autumn One - Moon Zoom!

We are very excited that our topic for Autumn One is Moon Zoom! On our impact day we will dress up as astronauts (date and information to follow in September) and we’ll travel through space to learn about the Solar System. Books and photographs will help us to learn about the first lunar landing and the astronauts who venture into space. We will be reading fiction stories and considering adverts and how we might convince people to travel to the moon!

 Moon Zoom book list: if you have any of these books, and we can borrow it, please let us know!

Home learning ideas: If you are able to do any of these ideas please share them with us!

Autumn 1

Week beginning 21st October 2019

Happy Half Term!  We can't believe how quickly this half term has gone and the children are so settled and trying hard, true ambassadors of the St Andrew's Way!

It was terrific to see so many of you visit our Showcase, we hope you enjoyed seeing your child's work and their planets! 

Please read as much as possible over the week and use Mathletics and Reading Eggs too!  Please email us both if you are having trouble logging on and we will try and send you the details. If you haven't already signed up for parents evening we have some slots available, you can access this via the Arbor parent portal (details have been in emails and via letter).

 Last week Cinders visited St Andrew's Church for the Harvest Service! We think she was more interested in nibbling the flowers than the service!

We still have space on the Cinders calendar if you haven't signed up to have her for a weekend. 

Autumn 1

Week beginning 14th October 2019

This week has been our innovate week at school and the children have been hard at work on a Design and Technology project. They are very excited to show you their creations at our Topic Showcase (Thursday 24th October 2019 at 14.15).

In maths we are learning about using addition and have used part-whole models to develop this understanding. As part of a structured reflection we considered the question below. Ask you child how it could be done using the frame.

In science we continue to consider properties of materials and their suitability.  Look at items in your home, choose an object, what it is made of and why. Could it be made from another material? Why? Why not?

Homework

Autumn 1

Week beginning 7th October 2019

A super week of hard work and perseverance from Seahorse Class.  In English we planned and retold Beegu and the unit of work was completed by comparing the story of Beegu with the story of Bog Baby. Watch as a family together and see what is unique to each story and what is similar.

In maths we continued our work on ordering and comparing numbers and quantities.  In science we looked at different materials and whether they could be changed by bending, squashing or stretching them. Look around your house and find objects made from different materials (wood, metal, fabric etc) and see if they can be 'changed'.  As part of our RE work on 'Who made the world' we considered questions that Christians may ask God. We had some great ideas such as 'Why did you make scary things?', 'Why did you make wasps?' and 'How are you still alive?'. 

We used (and loved) this version of the Creation story (click to see)! 

Please be aware that the links are from Youtube so the content is not controlled or filtered, adult supervision is needed.

Sid Seahorse enjoyed another story with a family this week and again the class loved sharing it - there was much laughter!  A terrific book review was completed!

Homework

Autumn 1

Week beginning 30th September 2019

   We have had fun sharing the story of Beegu  (click on the picture to hear the story).On our first read we could not see Beegu and we had to listen very carefully to verbal instructions to make our own playdough Beegu.  If you have playdough, have a go at giving each other instructions to make a model: great for speaking and listening skills! We also created a 'missing poster' for Beegu using adjectives and expanded noun phrases to describe her. We spent time considering her thoughts and feelings and what she may say in different situations. Next week we will look at the sequence and retell the story.

Thank you for all the junk modelling you sent in! We used lots of design technology skills to create some fantastic space shuttles.

In maths we have continued place value with a focus on tens and ones and comparison of quantities and numerals. We used the vocabulary 'greater than', 'less than' and 'equal', to explain our understanding.  As part of this we have used the symbols < and > and you will see this on our maths homework. As a memory prompt, we used a you tube song to remind us what these symbols mean (click on the picture to hear the song). If you share this as a family please use the language of 'greater than' and 'less than' when comparing numbers. Can you find any numbers in your home? Use the symbols to compare them! We would love to see what you do!

We used the work of Artist Wassily Kandinsky to inspire our own work. We used this piece of art work and asked questions like 'What can you see?', 'How does it make you feel?', 'What shapes has he used?' and 'What media do you think the Kandinsky chose to use?'

Sid Seahorse loved this weeks book 'We're going on a Bear Hunt' and book review.  It was a huge hit and we all joined in the repeating language (and actions)!

Don't forget to read daily, practise spellings and complete your math task. Please bring in maths homework for us to see and share!

Reminder

Next Thursday 10th October is #HelloYellow Day. Letters have been sent home and the letter is also posted on the 'Latest News' section of our website which can be located under the 'Parents' drop down tab. Children can wear something yellow with their uniform (or all yellow) that day! We will be talking about ways to try and stay positive and talk about the importance of being/staying mentally fit and well as well as being/staying physically fit and well.

Autumn 1

Week beginning 23rd September 2019

Another busy week in Seahorse class and we are really seeing our routines become embedded. In literacy we have spent time considering simple sentences and writing these correctly.  Year twos have considered how to expand these into simple noun phrases.  In maths we have continued exploring place value and split numbers into 'part, part, whole'. This began with us using equipment such as diennes, then drawing the diennes before finally we recorded with numerals.

A two digit number is split into parts, we have focused on tens and ones and toward the end of the week we began to explore other ways a number could be split into parts.

In science we explored materials and investigated how we could group them.

Seahorse class were introduced to Sid Seahorse today. Sid will be coming home with one child a week. We would like you to choose your favourite children's book and complete the book review in Sid's diary.  We would like to then share the book as a class, so if possible, please send it in with Sid in his bag (we will return it once we've read it). 

Sid went home with Mrs Mitchell and shared 'The Smartest Giant in Town'. As a class we read the book review and shared the story.

Please ask if you have any questions!  

We took part in BBC singing event and had great fun following the vocal warm up and then singing together.

Autumn 1

Week beginning 16th September 2019

A great week in Seahorse Class. We LOVED our space day on Monday and as you have probably heard we went on a rocket and took a tour round our solar system. In the afternoon we did lots of experiments and made space rockets.  We have considered the questions that we might ask an astronaut and wrote these down.  We used a great website where other people had asked Tim Peake questions and he answered them!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zw44jxs/articles/z822hv4

In maths we have been counting, looked at the pattern of numbers and representing numbers in various ways. We also focused on 1 more and 1 less than a given number.

The calendar for taking Cinders home at the weekend will be available from Monday. You can pop into the playground in the morning, into the classroom at the end of the day or email us a selection of dates and we can try and pop you on.

On Friday we had tennis coaching with Matt - see the photo gallery below!

Check book bags for letters!

Autumn 1

Week beginning 9th September 2019

Another busy week in Seahorse Class with the children impressing us even more! Thank you for all of those who were able to attend our parent meeting this week. Please find the presentation that we shared at the bottom of our class page. We have also included the year 1 and year 2 spelling lists, reading comprehension questions and our timetable.

In maths we have spent time establishing basic expectations and investigated how we handle the maths manipulatives that help us learn (such as multilink, dienes, cuisenaire and numicon). The resources were explored whilst demonstrating our place value knowledge of how numbers can be represented.

In Literacy we re-visited our vision and what #makeadifference means to us.  We carried out our first assessed independent writing task using a stimuli that every class will use for this assessment piece. In KS1 POD we retold the story.  Watch the clip and see how you would retell it (don't forget your descriptive language)!   

https://www.literacyshed.com/butterflies.html

Please ensure PE bags are brought to school next week and we look forward to seeing the children on Monday for our Impact Day!

Autumn 1

Week beginning 4th September 2019

We may have only been at school for three days but we have packed a lot in!  Your children have amazed us with their choices and attitude and have truly followed the St Andrew's Way! We done to them all!  We have spent time this week getting to know each other, setting out our class expectations and reminding ourselves or how we behave at school.

We shared the Starfish Story and thought about the many ways that we can #makeadifference. Ask us to tell you the story. A conversation prompt could be 'tell me what the child found as they walked along the beach...?'

We used the NSPCC 'PANTS' activities to help remind us how to keep ourselves safe: have a look at the website and listen to the catchy song at the top to help us remember!

  https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/underwear-rule/

On Friday we considered how we will learn when outdoors and went for a great nature scavenger hunt outdoors: ask us what we saw! Some of us did feel quite chilly so please send in coats as we hope to do more learning outdoors whatever the weather.

We sent home lots of letters today about meetings and clubs so please check your child's bookbag this weekend.

Most children have got a reading book and record in the bags now so please read daily (when possible) and sign their diary. We will be counting up the number of home reads and giving out certificates to reward their perseverance!

Next week

•  Please send in PE bags as we will have indoor PE Tuesday and outdoor PE on Fridays.
•  Thursday (12th September), we will be hosting a family meeting after school at 3:15 in Turtle class. The meeting is not appropriate for children so we will provide a supervised creche for the children. It is a short meeting but we will share information around timetables, our curriculum and how families can support learning at home. Please don't fret if you are unable to attend. Your child's class teacher will be happy to discuss this with you at a different, mutually convenient time and we will upload all the information to our class pages on this website.
• Please send in the permission slip for being able to hold Cinders if you have haven't already done so.

New School Year!

We are excited to be starting back soon in Seahorse Class!  We hope you have had a brilliant break and had a chance to look at some of the home learning ideas.  Please help us to ensure your child has a great start to the year by reading daily with them and encouraging their independence including getting themselves dressed, ready for school etc.  When we return we will be spending the first week or so establishing the St Andrew's Way behaviour systems, setting clear classroom expectations, consolidating some basic numeracy and english skills and getting to know one another! Our new topic will begin after this period of settling in. 

Our class hamster, Cinders, is having a great holiday as well and the timetable for taking her home will be available mid September.  

Did you know we have active Facebook and Twitter pages? Click on the link to have a look!

Websites for home-learning opportunities.

A reminder to all parents/carers/pupils about these website links:

· Please only use the internet and log onto these websites with parent/carer supervision.

· Use the internet safely and sensibly at all times.

·  If you are unsure about anything please talk to your parent/carer straight away.

·  We hope you enjoy learning more about and revising curriculum areas that we have been covering in class.

  Top Marks maths games                                          Reading Eggs

    Mathletics                                                        TimeTables RockStars

   YouTube Math songs

    Mathmagicians: Countdown game                     

   Hit the button

    j2code

We have begun to explore coding on the computer.

Spelling: National Curriculum Requirements

Parent Links

    Support saying the sounds